Is the Green New Deal our modern Children’s Crusade?

I know what you
are thinking. What the is the children crusade and how the hell does
it have anything to do with the green deal.

The Children’s “Crusade” began in the year 1212 with two groups of children, one from France and another from Germany. At least one of the founders claimed to have had a vision of God, no doubt inspired by legends of the heroism from prior crusades. There are various accounts of how this crusade ended. Some say that when the kids reached the sea that they expected it to part before them, but nothing of that sort happened. What happened instead is that many drowned as they let their blind faith carry them on into the sea. Other accounts state that when they reached the sea there were ships waiting for them. The sailors of those ships ended up selling many of the kids into slavery. This crusade was a disaster, no one can argue that point.

The issue here is
not that kids thought they could do something, it is that they
assumed that because of their faith in God he would deliver to them
the victory that THEY sought.

Artwork portraying the Children’s Crusade

To take Oscar Wilde out of context, it is the triumph of hope over experience. Surely, there were many experienced knights that fought in the other crusades that they could have sought the counsel of before marching off like lambs to the slaughter.

I will say it again, hope over experience…

This is exactly why someone like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez can win a seat in congress with her socialist dogma, while at the same time we can see the dream of socialism melting away into a nightmare in Venezuela.

Now let’s talk about the Green New Deal. The Green New Deal is a document which proposes sweeping changes to the freedoms we all love and cherish in the United States of America. How will these changes be enforced, you might ask? Well the answer is simple, more government control and regulation. Let’s just call a spade a spade though, this is just another version of socialism. More government control and regulation and less freedom. Oh, and less money as well, because many of the proposed programs will cost big bucks, not to mention the loss of wealth that will be the natural result of curtailing the auto and airline industries.

A few weeks ago we saw the comedy of errors from the regressive left, which ended in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez going into damage control mode claiming that what was released on her website was an earlier draft of the “real” plan. I am not holding my breath to see her “real plan”.

These types of things always put hope in our minds that we can do whatever we want. Like the children of the Children’s Crusade thought God would save them, so many today think that the government will save us. All they have to do is look at the many failed socialist and communist schemes in the past to know that no one is coming for you, no one is going to save you.

Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York

Not to mention the countless millions (a USA Today article claimed 100 million) of people that have lost their lives under socialist and communist totalitarian governments. Seems like an awfully high price to pay for hope.

Maybe a little humility is in order. Sure, we can listen to a politician sell utopian ideals or tell us how things can be perfect if we just give over more control to the government. Or… we can look to the lived experiences of people who already tried. There are still people alive today who have lived through some of these socialist and communist systems. That might be a good place to start.

Ben Balke

Benjamin Balke, is the founder of economicsis.com. A blog about behavioral economics. From studying economic heavyweights like Thomas Sowell Ben realized most, if not all, of human actions, are guided by economic principles. Check more from Ben and follow him on twitter @balkeben. Take a look at his youtube channel here.